


Hisoka's Rebirth

by BlueLightningAndNexus



Category: Hunter X Hunter
Genre: Blood and Gore, Character Death, Character Study, Dark Continent Arc, F/M, Resurrection, Retelling, Revenge, Rewrite, Spoilers for the Dark Continent Arc
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-23
Updated: 2020-09-23
Packaged: 2021-03-08 04:14:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,763
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26609602
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BlueLightningAndNexus/pseuds/BlueLightningAndNexus
Summary: What was Hisoka thinking in his final moments? What did he think of right after he came back? What did he see after his death?OR a retelling of Hisoka's death and resurrection.
Relationships: Hisoka & Machi, Hisoka/Machi (Hunter X Hunter)
Comments: 2
Kudos: 21





	Hisoka's Rebirth

To Hisoka, death was quite a bit like downing an Azian Fireball in one swig; neat, and definitely something to brag about, but not the sort of thing a guy would like to experience twice. 

When those dozens up dozens of Chrollo’s puppets started swarming him, his aura depleted, Bungee Gum at its limit, and his hand and foot blown clean off; Hisoka was surprised to find that there was no “flash”. He’d often heard--hell, even seen in the eyes of some of the stronger opponents he disposed of--about the life flashing before someone’s eyes, the reliving of everything they did in the moments before death. 

_ Huh, it hasn’t happened yet _ , he thought calmly.  _ Oh well. I’ll give it another moment.  _

And yet, seconds later, when getting crushed in a massive, bone-breaking, suffocating dogpile by several of the puppets, Hisoka still didn’t feel any sort of flash. He didn’t see the various exciting fights he’d gotten himself into; he didn’t see his first time using Bungee Gum, the Royal Glam hotel, or the Moritonio troupe; he didn’t see Gon’s adorable, bloodied little face after their match; he didn’t relive the fear he felt fighting Razor in an absurdly high-stakes game of dodgeball; he didn’t experience all of this stitches with Machi. 

He saw  **nothing** . 

All in all, that seemed like a sign that he might want to take another shot at this whole “life” thing that everyone was going on about. 

_ Oh well _ ,  _ I always did find life more entertaining than death.  _ As the puppets closed the gap, slamming into him like battering rams and knocking Hisoka on his back, he closed his eyes, content.  _ Might as well give this whole thing another go, right? _

Cobbling together scraps of information he overheard from Chrollo and the various Hunters he slaughtered over the years, Hisoka tried his best to forge a last-minute contract, programming his Bungee Gum to work as a sort of pump and rejuvenate his heart and lungs. 

_ God I hope this works _ , he thought, as the puppets frantically stomped on his chest, crushed his hands and shattered his windpipe. 

Hisoka’s vision started going dark, darker, darker, darker…

Black. 

___________

Legally, Hisoka was dead for almost 15 minutes. All things considered, that was pretty fucking impressive. 

With a gasp of fresh oxygen into his damaged, Nen-supported lungs at 4:17 PM, he officially rejoined the world of the living. 

He was a bit disappointed, though not surprised, to find that there wasn’t much after this world. Just emptiness. 

He was  **delighted** , however, to find out that his Nen successfully worked. And even more enthused to find Machi leaning over him when he awoke. 

Machi, for what it was worth, didn’t seem to share his enthusiasm. Mild shock seemed like the more appropriate way to describe her current state. 

“I...I can’t believe it,” she told him. 

Despite Hisoka’s face being blown to pieces, his lips reduced to a chapped nothing, and his nose being basically nonexistent, he managed a smile. What few pain receptors he had left in his face went off like firecrackers. 

“Yo, Machi,” he wheezed.  _ Damn, talking hurts now _ . “I was dead, right?”

“As disco,” she replied. Hisoka felt a bit offended by that comparison. Surely, for however dead he was, it couldn’t have compared to the state disco was in, right?

“How long was I gone?” he asked. “What time is it?”  _ God, my throat fucking hurts _ . 

“15 minutes, you were gone.” Machi continued to hold the strings tight in her hand, trying to ignore the slight tremor reflected in the thread. 

“Really?” he wheezed again, followed by a cough. “That’s gotta be some kind of record, right?”

“It’s a miracle you aren’t a vegetable right now,” she replied. “That long without air should’ve killed your brain. Though, I can probably chalk that up to your Nen too, right? I bet you programmed something in Bungee Gum to keep oxygen circulating to your brain, even after you died, just quiet enough that Chrollo wouldn't notice.”

Hisoka laughed. The feeling that resulted was akin to getting stabbed in the throat by one of Illumi’s needles. Repeatedly. 

“How…” she began, before trailing off. “Wow, I didn’t even know you could use post-mortem Nen.”

“Neither did I,” he managed. “Chrollo just wouldn’t shut up about it during our match, something about a cooky elder from Meteor City. I thought it was a bit strange at first, but hey, it gave me a great idea, didn’t it!”

Machi said nothing. Her shock vanished, replaced with the sort of mild annoyance that characterized a lot of their interactions. She folded her arms, looking down on him. 

Hisoka got out of the stretcher. “Oh, come on, Machi, gimme some credit. That was pretty good, wasn’t it!”

She hummed. “You gonna need me to stitch you up?”

Hisoka scoffed. She really didn’t know how to appreciate his finer moments, did she? “No, it’s fine, I got this,” he said. 

The magician stood up, left leg wobbly. He brought his left hand--already blown apart, missing his fingers and the top layer of skin--up to his face, feeling the bloody space where a nose should exist. 

“Wow, fighting someone on Chrollo’s level...really makes a guy think, huh?” Hisoka asked. Hisoka activated his Hatsu, the sensation as familiar as breathing...which is to say, it felt a bit weird after being suffocated to death and resurrected. 

“Does this mean you’re going to stop getting into risky situations?” Machi asked, raising an eyebrow. 

Hisoka chuckled, smiled. The sight looked grotesque considering the state of his appearance. “No,” he said, with a boyish grin. 

Machi watched as he used his Bungee Gum on the torn, bleeding parts of his face, his hand, his foot. Texture Surprise followed soon after, transforming the rubbery aura into a substance closely resembling his flesh, but transforming aura with Texture Surprise was never ideal for Hisoka. He resolved to replace it with some better material when he got a chance. 

“Ta-da!” he exclaimed, as if presenting a rabbit he just pulled out of a hat. “Good as new!”

Machi scoffed. “Whatever. Sounds like you won’t be needing me. I’m gonna get out of here, grab some lunch.”

Machi stopped dead in her tracks. Her left foot wouldn’t budge, then her right foot got stuck soon afterwards. Why wouldn’t her legs work?

She looked down. Pink aura trapped her feet, binding them to the blood-stained concrete. Wait, when did he do that? Strong, toned arms--ripped to shreds by explosions and knives and Nen-enhanced kicks, but still way too strong--wrapped around her from behind, a sort of hug. 

“Oh, Machi, don’t you realize?” he asked, a new, sultry edge to his voice. “I always need you. Always.”

“Hisoka, let me out!” she shouted.

“I can’t do that.” While he kept the upbeat, showy tone he always had, the individual words themselves felt flat, neutral on his tongue. “Because if I did that, I’d have to kill you.” 

He reached into her pocket, pulling out her cell phone and crushing it in the palm of his hand, the device reduced to plastic dust in seconds as she struggled. The more force she applied, the harder it recoiled when she inevitably got pulled back. 

He’d programmed his Bungee Gum to last 4 hours. That should be enough time to get a head start. 

“Hisoka, you can’t fucking leave me here!” she shouted. “Don’t fuck with me, I’ll kill you myself!”

“I have to leave you, my dear Machi.” He turned his back to her, and walked towards the exit. "It's because I need you, that I have to leave you."

“Chrollo will come after you,” she continued. “Let me go, and we walk away, like this never even happened. But if this happens, he will never stop.”

_ That’s good _ , Hisoka thought.  _ Because neither will I.  _

___________________

Hisoka didn’t know how, but everything felt  _ sharper _ . 

His senses were better than they were before he died, somehow. Birds chirping two blocks down, the smell of a five-star restaurant a couple streets away, the colors on a blade of grass. Maybe it was the euphoria of escaping death--of escaping  **Chrollo** \--or the rush of a great fight, but whatever it was, Hisoka felt fantastic. 

The predator found his prey soon enough. 

___________________

Kortopi came apart in his hands like clay. 

After the police arrived at Heavens Arena, the Troupe all went their separate ways, ready to regroup at a moment’s notice, just like always. Shalnark and Kortopi were the only two who elected to stay together; being without their Hatsu, it seemed a safe bet for them to stick together until they found Chrollo and were back to full strength. 

Luckily, Hisoka was banking on this. Two birds, meet one vengeful, undead stone. 

All it took was for Kortopi to split off and use a public restroom in a park. Hisoka dove down, broke the stall apart and ripped the Troupe’s weakest member to shreds. The cloaked member threw a weak punch, which Hisoka caught with ease, tearing the arm off. As red stains formed on Hisoka’s shoes, he placed one hand on Kortopi’s neck, the other on his head, and pulled. 

“Hey, Kortopi, you alright over there?”

Ah, Shalnark. 

Hisoka emerged from around the corner and, without looking in the blond’s direction, tossed him the severed head of his teammate. 

“Yo, Shalnark! Catch.”

Shalnark instinctively reached out, grabbing onto the head, before recoiling in disgust. In the following split-second, Hisoka was on top of him. A punch to the nose, a jab in the eye, a blow to the shoulder, a swift kick to the feet. The Manipulator never stood a chance. 

A few blocks down, Hisoka watched with glee as a murder of crows flew in the direction of the park. The clown’s shoes left red footprints on the sidewalk as he practically skipped to his next destination. 

___________________

The following morning, the papers would deem this a brutal massacre, on a level unseen since the days of Johness the Dissector in Zaban City. 

Hisoka watched the news that evening, reporters at the outskirts of the park, yellow tape covering every inch and surface. Satisfaction rushed over him in wave after wave. His bloodlust was quenched, but only for a moment. His tolerance had grown. He needed  **more** . 

“Two down,” he whispered, feeling more alive than he ever did before dying. “10 more to go.”

Somehow, in some way, Hisoka knew that Machi was watching the news at that very moment, too. 

**Author's Note:**

> God Hisoka is such a weird character and I love him so much, I really tried to show that by bleeding his weirdness into quirky and funny narrations that just get progressively darker. This fight and this scene immediately afterwards are easily two of my all-time favorite scenes in the manga.


End file.
